Dressed to Impress

That was you, right?
sauntering up to me
With a pseudo concerned look in your eyes
Looking for water in the valley of the dried pride

Telling me, "Now I know you’ll never be a superstar
But it would suit you well to raise the bar."
"Come," you say, "I
must tell you this
I just don’t believe that your wardrobe preference fits
My preferred style of appropriateness."
"Or maybe," you said, "If you just did your hair like this
You'd be a few inches closer to a yard
closer to the woman that I see fit.

Besides, as we can all see your material is coming up short."

That was you, right?

pushing
And poking and
prodding
Picking and the prodded and picked
About how I wasn’t that and I wasn’t this

Tried awfully hard to make me believe
I wasn’t presentation worthyof gifts already received
words you spitIn my face
Erudite flight of syllables through
time travel

Fists that used to make my brown eyes blue
When my abusers said, “Who would ever want you?”

I stand at the crossroads
Wondering which train will come first
Valley or height

But wait a minute, I see something………That was you, right?

Standing there coquettish
Leaned to the side
Tempting every bit of me to clench my fist and let you ride?
Thinking you’ve been diligent in duty cauze you've done a good thing
All the while .......coveting
Everything I’ve been conditioned to believe
Nobody would ever want
From me

See, sometimes the attack is a sprint, not a jaunt
in the deep abyss of varicose want
that keeps on peeking through, no matter what they do...

Blisters break the blessings
And blessings breaks the skin
And the skin opens up on contact
And the contact build a callus
So that no matter how many stings and arrows the enemy throws
You never lose your balance

Out of your mouth insert a size nine knock off Prada
capable of attempts to tear down those in your path in leaps and bounds
so talented...
Not far behind are a renegade band of dirty verbed outlaws
All designed to make me pause
For your cause

Apple red lips perch and pitch
rouge insecurities
with no liability accountability or responsibility
hoping for a home runbut still hitting foul

No one said anything about the many different times
That as the object of your despise
I protected your six
And your seven, and eleven
While you were hitting me on my three
Wishing you were on my five

Smilin' all up *in* my twelve

That was you, right?

Well then,
You must have mistaken me
For someone who took up a hobby of
Dressing to impress you
Dressing to upset you
Whispering words of weaponry
An object of disrespect for you to be

Hoping against hope
Praying against faith
Betting against love
Forgetting that Sunday school lesson:In my Father’s house
He takes all
So instead of saying eff you
I say bless you
Forgive them Father for they know not what they do

Quite apparent you haven’t a clue
About what a real sophisticate student haute couture style can do
When you focus on the inside instead of the outside of you

That was you, right?

And in case you forgot,
The clothes don’t make the woman,
The woman makes the clothes,
And because I am a woman
I won’t undress your shame
I will address you as a woman who knows From whence she came
I will give you the dignity I wasn't afforded
and call you by your rightful name

I will dress you with love
I will dress you with peace
I will dress you with hope
I will dress you with patience
I will address you with gentleness
I will dress you with class
I will dress you the way God dressed the lilies of the fields
Solomon’s beauty in all its splendor Could not surpass

I will dress you with kindness
That you must have never knownI will dress you
with the blood of the lamb who hung on the cross
That didn’t think it uncouth to be caught dead in A bloody loin cloth

I will address you as a human being,
that deserves to be treated with respect
because that’s what I wear when I’m dressed to impress